What happens in the ivory tower and how does it rate on Wall Street?

Abstract

The value of higher education has traditionally not been exposed to and determined by market forces. Academic work has for centuries been deemed part of the creative domain and for that reason immeasurable. In South Africa, as in many countries abroad, public and political pressure on higher education institutions for accountability has burgeoned. The introduction of outcomes B based education has further focussed the attention on what institutions deliver. In a global labour market the question of comparability has become increasingly relevant. This article reports on action research in the development of a job evaluation system for academic work, based on JE Manager, a local product, and also compares this system to Higher Education Role Analysis (HERA), a similar product developed by the Education Competences Consortium especially for the higher education sector in the United Kingdom.



South African Journal of Higher Education Vol.16(1) 2002: 136-144